Ame took to the trees and jumped from limb to limb, throwing a couple of rocks for some background noise. As expected, the others took the bait and began moving into the sound. Ame signaled for Kim to move in. Ame fired at one of the kids, knocking him in the back. The others began scrambling for the sound, and Ame began darting around in the trees.

"There she is!" one of them shouted. "It's Amaterasu!"

"Crap," Ame muttered. She began running through the trees, heeding the paintballs at her feet, trying to lead them away from the shelter. They shot after her, but didn't move. Ame paused between two trees. Ame caught her breath for a moment.

"They're not going to come away from that shelter," Ame thought. "They're probably leaving me to their offensive team, which will be coming for a re-load any time now. I can't just leave them to find Kim."

Ame turned around and climbed the tree, jumping from limb to limb until she was close enough to shoot accurately. They fired at her, but it was by sheer luck that she was able to shoot another down. However, the branch she was standing on suddenly broke, and she was in the middle of their group, on the ground. They didn't waste a second; they were all shooting, and Ame was frantically dodging. She moved forward and sideways, dodging three pellets. She extended her arm and shot at the person that just shot at her. While her back was partially turned, another player shot.

Ame threw herself back, the pellet just barely missing her chest and hitting the player on the other side of her, and extended her arm to shoot. It was sloppy, but she was still alive. Ame straightened and aimed at the final player of the group.

"It's over now," she said.

"Stop right there," Kim said behind her. Ame froze and turned her head slightly. Kim was aiming her gun at Ame.

"Kim?" Ame glanced at the other player, who Ame was able to recognize now a Jackie, Kim's partner. "I get it. I'll let her go."

"No," Kim said. "I'm joining her team."

Ame was quiet for a minute. "Are you sure?"

"Kim, you don't have to do this for me," Jackie said. "You would betray Ame? You would betray Ox?"

"Why wouldn't I betray him?"

But Kim hesitated.

"I… I didn't mean to betray the DWMA," she said. "The academy is the greatest place I've ever known. I'm sorry, Jackie, but I can't betray them again. Ame gave me another chance."

"Okay, good," Jackie sighed, putting down her gun. "How about I join you guys?"

"You'd do that?" Ame asked.

"Yeah," she said. "It's boring over here. Plus, I have some valuable information that your team could use."

"We'll accept your heinous betrayal and let you join our team," Ame established, lowering her own paint gun and extending a hand. "So, Kim, did you find anything in the shelter?"

"Yeah, apparently this is where they were keeping their loot," Kim said.

"So what should we do with it?" Jackie asked. "Should we take as much as we can or bring your team over here?"

"Is this the only place they've stashed weapons?" Ame asked. It was an obvious question; she was just testing Jackie now.

"This was the small stash," Jackie explained. "There's a really big stash on the other side of the field, so they won't miss these guns that much."

It was settled that they would take the guns and meet the others. Once they returned to their original spot, the others immediately aimed their guns at Jackie.

"Will you relax?" she demanded, particularly of Ox. "I'm on your team."

"Not if I have something to say about it," Ox declared.

"She's on our team," Kim said.

"Okay," Ox lowered his gun and backed away. "Did you find anything?"

"Just some ammo," Ame sighed. "How are you guys doing?"

"We lost a few people; they used up what little ammo we still had, but now that we have this, it's time to stop camping out. We're ready to fight now."

"Good to hear," Ame said, charging in the direction of the gun shots.

Meanwhile, on the other team, Blackstar was taking things a lot more seriously. He'd already eliminated nine of the other team's players alone. He bounded behind the rock that Maka was hiding behind and held out his gun.

"Need more ammo, boss," he said. Maka sighed.

"If you keep burning through it like this, there won't be enough to take down the others."

"They'll be easy kill," he shrugged. "Thanks."

"Hey, Maka," Soul called. "We're running low on players. We need you out here."

"Okay," Maka replied. She put a cartridge in her pocket and moved forward along the rows of rocks. She joined Kid behind one of the obstructions just as he was re-loading.

"Hey," he greeted, rather out of breath.

"Hey," she said.

"So how's it going? Seen Ame around yet?"

"Nope," Maka said. "I have a feeling she'll be showing up soon."

Maka kept as low as she could and shot who she could. She actually thought she was doing pretty well until one mistake.

Just one mistake.

Maka didn't see it happen. She could only hear Crona scream her name. Then she saw. It was Ame, and she had Crona in a headlock, pointing a gun at his head. Kilik and Harvard were covering her.

"Crona!" she shouted, running out in the open to save her friend.

"Maka, don't!" Kid shouted after her.

Ame smiled and, pointing her gun at Maka, pulled the trigger. Maka flinched; she was sure she was going to be hit, until…

"Maka!" Soul shouted, shoving her out of the way. The paint pellet hit his chest sloppily, and he collapsed to the ground.

"Soul!" Maka cried. "Why would you take a bullet for me like that, Soul?!"

Soul weakly opened his eyes. "I'm always willing to die for my meister, Maka…."

"No!" Maka suddenly felt incredible rage as she raised her gun vengefully at Ame. "You monster…."

"Do you really think you can shoot me, Maka?" Ame asked, her voice stone cold. "I can use Crona as a shield, and if you make one wrong move, it's over for both of you."

"Maka, fall back!" Kid ordered. Maka hesitated where she was kneeling on the ground.

"I won't forget this," Maka glowered, getting to her feet and backing away.

"Take him with you," Ame said, shoving Crona at her. "I don't kill children."

With that, she turned and fell back into the trees.

Soul Eater

"How are we doing?" she asked her other teammates.

"Not so good," Kilik replied. "We're out of ammo."

"And we're hungry!" one of the NOT students complained.

"I hear that," Ame nodded. "Whoever's still okay to fight, I can reload your guns. The rest of you can stay behind to rest for a while."

"How can you reload our guns? We have no paint," Ox stated.

"Thanks, Captain State the Obvious," Ame snorted. She knelt on the ground with the gun he handed her and cut her wrist with a small rock. Black blood dripped in thick drops from the wound. After the ink filled the cartridge, it hardened into little black pellets.

"You're using your blood?" Jackie asked.

"Good enough for me," Kim said, handing Ame her gun. "We gotta hit them hard while they're down."

After reloading everyone's guns, however, Ame was a bit feint from anemia. She leaned against a tree so that she wouldn't fall over.

"Ame, are you alright?" Jackie asked.

"Fine," she managed a small smile. "Just a bit tired from all that blood loss."

"You should rest then," Hiro said. "I'll stay behind with you while the others go on ahead. The other team will catch on that it's your ink fairly quickly, but we can't let them know you're down."

"Okay," Ame said, nodding and sitting on the ground.

The others headed forward. They needed to fight the other team.

"Why isn't Ame out here?" Kid wondered as he continued fighting with what remained of his team.

"Kid," Maka reported. "They're cheating; they're using Ame's blood as paint."

"So that's how they want to play," Kid sighed. "Hey, Crona! Get over here, we need you."

"Kid!" Maka scolded.

"It unanimous, then," Kid shrugged. "After all, we're all out of ammo; we don't have a choice."

With a little persuading, he was able to get Crona to cooperate.

"How are the girls doing?" Kid asked absentmindedly as he reloaded the other guns. Maka glanced over the wall they were hiding behind.

"Well, Liz is still alive," Maka said. "And Patti's probably our greatest asset next to Blackstar, at this point…."

"Go ahead and try to avenge Soul," Kid said. Maka looked at him curiously, but he refused to look at her. "I'm curious as to how Ame would react to that."

Maka noticed that there was something off about him. She hadn't really considered it, but were he and Ame having trouble with each other again? Maybe he was just stressed about the Demon Lord. After all, Ame hadn't shown any sign of worry after the attack. Maka pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and began to focus on the game again.

"Ame's back!" Liz shouted.

With that, the war continued. What few players remained fought to the death until the sun started setting. Eventually, even Liz and Patti were taken out. Kid was the only one left. He just kept seeing all of his comrades die out, as if he was the only one who knew how to stay alive. He hated it. But finally, everything was silent. Was he really the only one left? Did he win? No, if that were true, the teachers would have announced it and the game would have ended. Only one person would lie in wait in silence like this.

"Come on out, Ame!" he shouted into the forest. He saw a small, white ear peek out from behind a tree, then her golden eye. She glared at him, and he glared back. He raised his gun and shot at the tree, but she darted out into the open and aimed at him. He kept his gun pointed at her. He let out a laugh. "I knew it would come down to a one-on-one between us. I definitely have more respect for you knowing you had the attention span to come this far."

"Instead of more respect, I would have preferred if you said you fell more in love with me," Ame replied.

"If you're willing to lose, I wouldn't mind," Kid said.

"Usually, I would, but not this time," Ame smirked. Kid raised his eyebrows. "You see, I was thinking, since it's just us, we could have a little punishment game after this."

"I get it," Kid grinned. "So, what did you have in mind?"

"Nothing special," Ame shrugged. "Maybe just a truth or dare scenario."

"And since I have something I need to know, I won't screw around," Kid said. "If you're ready, here I go!"

Ame charged at him. They each ran towards each other and fired one last shot at each other. However, they were both hit at the same time. They both collapsed on the ground from exhaustion, covered in dirt and paint.

"Wait a minute, so who won?" Marie asked.

"Um…" Sid turned to Azusa for an answer. She straightened her glasses.

"Nobody one," she said. "They both died, and there is no one left on either team. This is a war settled without a winner or a loser."

"How disappointing," Kid sighed. Ame got to her feet and shook her sweat-drenched hair out. She took her gun and held a hand out to Kid, who was still on the ground thinking about how useless he was. He looked up at her hand and her stupid smile. He suddenly felt more content than he had in a long time. It was all just a game, in the end. Now he knew why Ame liked games so much; there was so much room for error, but you could always try again later.

He took Ame's hand and got to his feet.

"Let's just… go home," he said at the same time Ame said, "Eat."

Well, that escalated quickly XD Anyway, this is the second chapter for today, and I think I'm good for now. Send me some feedback telling me how you liked the chapter and I'll have some more chapters up as soon as I can :D